She has--what do you call it--?"
"Is obsession the word you want?"
"Yes--that's it."
"Now, Leila, neither you nor I nor Mark Rivers can help those two people
we love. Don't cry, Leila; or cry if it will help you. When you marry, be
sure to ask, 'what are your politics, Jeremiah?'" His diversion answered
his purpose.
"I never would marry a man named Jeremiah."
"I recommend a well-trained widower."
"I prefer to attend to my husband's education myself. I should like a man
who is single-minded when I marry him."
"Well, for perversion of English you are quite unequalled. Go and flirt a
bit for relief of mind with Mark Rivers."
"I would as soon flirt with an undertaker. Why not with Dr. McGregor?"
"It would be comparable, Leila, to a flirtation between a June rose and a
frost-bitten cabbage. Now, go away. These people's fates are on the lap
of the gods."
"Of the god of war, I fear," said Leila.
"Yes, more or less." He sent her away mysteriously relieved, she knew not
why. "A little humour," he reflected, "is as the Indians say, _big
medicine_."
Whether the good doctor's advisory prescription would have served
as useful a purpose in the case of Ann Penhallow, he doubted. That
heart-sick little lady was driven swiftly homeward, the sleigh-runners
creaking on the frozen snow: "Walk the horses," she said to Billy, as
they entered the long avenue, "and quit talking.
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